My one cent opinion right now here on the current state of the game is, its a point of where two group the dev and customers have to come to an understanding, is the initial part of the game hard to the point you can call it a bit unfair? yes to an extent, but after getting the first badge believe me it can be like any other pokemon game cause the map opens up, so my opinion to people just tough it out believe me the game is good especially as its one of the few for the parody of the franchise, but in the case for the dev look man I get it people are hard to deal with, they can keep be annoying to the point you actually just wanna backhand one or two I get it, but like you said you might not want to be a public figure you gotta be not for you but for the content you make, you have to be a salesman and while some people may like the no fks given thing it might effect you in the long run, ( again it might not and you might become as big as NLT so then fk me I guess), so sometimes just smile to the pain man.
Lastly how to improve the game a bit, introduce a small better variety of pokemon to deal with the trainers in the area, something like radical red, emerald kaizo, or unbound do give the player the variety of tactics to use against the AI while having ai be smarter and its pokemon be smarter, introduce a level cap since you dont want players to do what they do in the franchise games its best to limit how strong they become such as level 25 for the first gym so even if they breeze through the first part they actually have to use there brains and you know try to win and this could be helped with limited or no use of items in battle, since they cant just switch stall while healing there strongest pokemon.
Again man this all is my 2 cents you are more than welcome to find this stupid and time wasting but believe me I see your good work and I want you to have success in the future but thats about it cheers.